Note 375 — Chapter VIII

Dr. Gross argues that any struggle which did take place was not between the Guild Merchant and the crafts, but between “the governing council (the “magnates,” “potentiores,” etc.) on the one side and the burgesses at large (“communitas,” “populus,” “minores”) on the other.” (Gross i. 110, 285.) The “magnates” of Norwich (Hudson’s Mun. Org. p. 24-5), or “les riches” of the city records, ruled in a city where there was no Guild Merchant. The “potentiores” of Lynn seem from the printed records to have been the Guild Merchant. In the town records “communitas” cannot be understood as synonymous with “populus,” still less with “minores.”